


then came this person, with chaos in her wake

by hacklesacademy (ladyvivien)



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017)
Genre: Ada Cackle is also pretty gay, F/F, Hackle, Hecate Hardbroom is super gay pass it on, Hecate is too introspective and needs to learn to use her out loud words, Lesbian teacher witches in love, So is Agatha, and its name is Mildred Hubble, gay angst, that's going to end in tears, there is a theme in 'things do not go as expected in the life of Hecate Hardbroom'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-23
Updated: 2017-09-23
Packaged: 2019-01-04 12:07:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12168582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyvivien/pseuds/hacklesacademy
Summary: There's an old witch’s tale about a frog in a cauldron, kicking his merry way about the potion as it heated up only to realise too late it had come to the boil. Hecate can feel the heat from Ada's gaze searing her skin and she knows that even if she could escape, she wouldn't.





	then came this person, with chaos in her wake

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cosmic_llin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmic_llin/gifts).



> Title taken from Mr Banks’ song ’A Man Has Dreams’ in Mary Poppins. Set during Mildred’s first term at Cackle’s, but before the finale. 
> 
> Thanks to cosmic_llin and fictorium for the quick beta.

It would be foolish, Hecate knows, to place all the blame for her current predicament at the foot of one hapless first year - and yet Mildred Hubble is such a useful scapegoat, with her trailing bootlaces and catastrophic attempts at the most basic spells.

She had been preparing for an uneventful year, a repeat of the one before that and the one before that and stretching back to before that blasted girl was even born. The school is her constant and it soothes her to know that even in the face of plummeting academic standards, Cackle’s remains. That Ada remains, unwavering in her devotion to girls and staff. She knows what outsiders think - that it’s all dramatic black cloaks and soaring through the skies, bending the elements of the universe to your whim with a snap of your fingers. They don’t see the control it takes - control she feels slipping through her fingers with every botched potion, broken rule and sheer disregard for basic personal safety.

Now she's behind on her marking, down half a first year (at least until Mildred's invisibility potion wears off), can feel a headache beginning to throb behind her left temple and one of her reference books has turned into a teapot. Ada, never one to turn down an opportunity, has conjured it full and tops Hecate's cup with an absent-minded wave of her hand. If this affects the book once it's turned back into its rightful state, she's demanding a replacement paid for from the school treasury. 

Hecate doesn't think it used to be this hard. She's managed whole academic years before without wanting to crack, to sit in Ada's office at the end of the day and close her eyes in tiredness, relax into the touch of gentle hand on tense shoulder and let Ada kiss all her cares away. Now, she can barely get through a week. The desire was there long before Mildred crash-landed into their pond, but now it's there at the end of every week.

There's an old witch’s tale about a frog in a cauldron, kicking his merry way about the potion as it heated up only to realise too late it had come to the boil. Working in silence on opposite sides of the desk, Hecate can feel the heat from Ada's gaze searing her skin and she knows that even if she could escape, she wouldn't. Still, maybe it’s not all the Hubble girl’s fault.  Maybe it's Agatha's pernicious influence, returning to Cackle's again and again, all snake-like charm and sly glances, a cruelly seductive parody of her sister. Or perhaps this whole pretence has simply run its course, a cauldron that bubbles over no matter how attentively you tend it.

There are moments when she wishes Agatha had given them all the obedience potion. She knew what it was, of course - among the more unsavory ingredients, it includes a frankly revolting amount of garlic - and she’d was settling on one of four different plans to avoid actually ingesting the stuff when Mildred interrupted them. But at least then it wouldn’t have been her fault. She could have given in, had an unholy approximation of what it is she really wants, rid it from her system and prayed to all the gods that Ada never found out.

How ironic, that the only woman to whom Hecate would ever give her whole entire being over has too many scruples to ever accept it. How bitterly unfair that there’s always an understudy waiting in the wings who would take it without hesitation.

Because of course Agatha knows. For all her faults - and Maud was right, she really is evil - she pays attention. It’s what she does - oozes her way back into her sister’s affection and their mother’s school, identifies the weakest link and plays the poor girl like a piano in one of Miss Bat’s chanting lessons. Dangerous when it’s one of the children, but downright humiliating when it’s a teacher. Because as much as Ada’s friendship is her biggest strength, has saved her from being a cold, angry shell of a witch one trail of breadcrumbs away from a gingerbread cottage, it is also a weakness. And a version of Ada willing to push back, who doesn’t let her Deputy Headmistress marinade uselessly in her own desire, who would work with her to stem the rising tide of mediocrity, who can hone Hecate’s sharpness and turn it into a weapon…

There are some lines Hecate will never cross and she has Ada to thank for that. Coming face to face with a fantasy better left in the privacy of her own sheets made her realise anew just how much Ada owns her, body and soul. All the things she thought she valued - excellence, discipline, strong leadership - pale in comparison next to the approval from a woman sweeter than the lemon drops she carries, who sees the good in everyone no matter how slow or stupid. Hecate has dedicated her entire life to being the best, to dragging others up to her level, and it stings that if she was lazy or weak then Ada would love her just the same (perhaps more).

But she has to maintain standards, has to be the inflexible one, because the alternative is anarchy and no one can ever know that when she puts a pupil in detention for a month for talking in class or confiscates their cat after a bad mark on a test, that when Ada gives her that frown, the one that says _Hecate dear, this time you’ve gone too far_ , all she wants to do is sink to her knees and say _Then show me_. Puppies roll over and show their stomachs when they encounter an alpha, but Hecate Hardbroom will be no one’s lapdog. She always has to be one step ahead, because the alternative is trailing behind Ada with a moonstruck look in her eyes and she won’t do that. She can’t. She is Ada Cackle’s right hand. She is reliable, adamantine, stern where Ada is gentle and brutally honest where Ada cloaks her words in tender equivocation. This is her calling, this is how her Headmistress needs her, and it never used to be so hard before.

It’s like casting two spells at the same time - her focus is split, and while she’s trying to keep Mildred in line and out of trouble, some softness creeps in.  Every temper lost is a crack in the armour Hecate has spent centuries building around herself. Every argument with Ada over that wide-eyed troublesome waif pushes her closer to the edge of something she can’t bring herself to name. Naming things gives them power, and this has too much power over her already. It gets harder and harder every year, but she does it. She can’t even remember why she keeps her guard up around a woman who would never judge her for her feelings - and might even reciprocate them - but it’s a force of habit and it’s not one she’ll break because of a clumsy little girl.

Contrary to popular belief, it’s not Mildred’s blood that makes her a risk, it’s her background. Not the flat - a warm, dry modern build full of love is more than equal to a damp old house with more crumbling masonry than actual affection - but her lack of training. Hecate is aware that her own parents may have started her earlier than most, but the reward for that is control. Even the Spellbodys, who use magic more for personal convenience than rigorous academic research, instilled in their daughter a healthy respect for the Craft by the time Maud could lisp her first chants. Mildred has power, that’s undeniable, and magical dynasties have to start somewhere. But without proper guidance, she’ll teach her slapdash ways to her daughter who will teach them to her daughter and within a few generations, Cackles’ will probably be in a permanent state of what Hecate can only describe as ‘being on fire’. No, better that Mildred has her careless ways drummed out of her now rather than make a bigger mistake later on, when she’s liable to bring down the reputation of not just the school but any other witch from a non-magical background. Better that Julie Hubble think the worst her daughter has to face is snobbery rather than the fate that the Great Wizard doles out to practitioners he considers unworthy. A shrinking community with dwindling power looks to outsiders for blame, and expulsion is the lesser of the possible evils in Mildred’s future.

But just because Hecate sympathises, just because she will do everything in her power to ensure that the worst witch in the entire academy either fails her first year outright or leaves Cackle’s at the top of her class, doesn’t mean that she doesn’t want to wring the wretched girl’s neck for each spanner she throws into the works. Hecate is well-practised in the art of being in agreement with Ada Cackle about practically everything, from the dubious health benefits of Mrs Tapioca's cooking to the precise angle needed to stir potions correctly, that she's forgotten what it's like to be in opposition, how it makes her temper flare and her blood rise. It's easy to hide your expression from someone when you're standing side by side. It's so much harder when you're looking directly at them. 

She reminds herself what she tells her pupils. _A witch is always in control. A witch does not let her emotions interfere with the Craft._ She's made girls write that five hundred times in detention - if she thought for a second it would work, she'd try it herself. An image of her writing  _I must not think about Ada's fingers on my skin while I'm teaching_ under the Headmistress' watchful gaze comes to mind, and she feels her breath catch in her throat.

"Are you alright, Hecate? Here, have some more tea."

Dear, sweet Ada. Who may sense that her second in command has feelings that go beyond professional respect and companionable fondness, but has no idea - can never, must never have any idea - that Hecate is her creature as surely as any familiar.

"Thank you, Headmistress."

Hecate Hardbroom schools her features into place, a perfect mask of cool indifference, and sips. 

 


End file.
